taxonomic status

Ekanayaka et al. (2019) have an expanded concept of Medeolariales to include the monotypic families Medeolariaceae, Ascocorticiaceae and Ascodichaenaceae, together with Dermateaceae, despite the Medeolariales clade in their Fig. 2 analysis having no statistical support. Ascocorticiaceae has no genetic data available, Ascodichaenaceae an LSU sequence only and Medeolariaceae SSU, ITS, and LSU sequences only. A lack of genetic data means Medeolaria and Ascodichaena were not treated by Johnston et al. (2019). Incorporating these taxa into the Johnston et al. (2019) alignments shows these two genera (and hence their families) to be phylogentically isolated within the Helotiales sensu Johnston et al. (2019), their position in phyogenies unstable, dependent on the taxa and genes included, and the analysis method used (PRJ, unpubl. data). This instability probably reflects long edge attraction problems.

taxonomic status

Korf in Ainsworth et al. (1974) used this name, but provided no Latin diagnosis.